Why Key ignored ACT over resource iwi clauses

posted by Mike Butler
April 16, 2017

It was former Prime Minister John Key who pushed National to stick with the Maori Party over the controversial iwi participation clauses in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, according to commentator Richard Harman.

ACT MP Leader David Seymour and United Future Leader Peter Dunne had a meeting with Key in April last year and offered to support the Bill if he agreed to drop the iwi participation clauses. Seymour said that Key was non-committal.

Other sources familiar with that meeting said Key had always intended that National would deal with the Maori Party rather than ACT and United Future.

That was because Key wanted the Maori Party to be able to produce some gains from its association with the Government which it might then be able to translate into more votes and thus provide National with enough support after the next election so it would not need NZ First and Winston Peters.

The decision by Prime Minister Bill English and Environment Minister Nick Smith to put iwi above Kiwi in resource consents and in everything to do with the environment prompted Hobson’s Pledge to campaign to repeal the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill iwi clauses.

Marlborough tribe calls on taniwha

A Marlborough tribe has apparently called on its taniwha in a fight to stop the relocation of a salmon farm, according to a Fairfax report.

The Ministry for Primary Industries wants to relocate New Zealand King Salmon farms in the Pelorus Sound and the Tory Channel area to different locations for environmental reasons.

The plan, announced in January, came after months of discussions with the Marlborough Sounds Salmon Working Group, which included representatives from the Marlborough District Council, MPI, community and interest groups, local tribes, and NZ King Salmon.

It's understood Ngati Kuia, who are opposed to the salmon farm on the grounds that it is being driven for "short-term profits", will cite their spiritual guardian or taniwha known as Kaikaiawaro as one reason why the development shouldn't go ahead.

Various such scary spiritual entities have been invoked over the years in various parts of New Zealand as a negotiating ploy in relation to developments involving large amounts of money.

Jail boss: Gangs not Treaty cause Maori reoffending

Maori gang-affiliation was "a major driver for recidivism," Corrections chief executive Ray Smith said after the Waitangi Tribunal said this means the Crown has breached its Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

The inquiry followed a claim by retired Napier probation officer Tom Hemopo, who last year filed a claim targeting the Department of Corrections and alleging no high-level commitment had been made to reduce the number of Maori in prison.

Gang members re-offended at nearly twice the rate of non-gang offenders, Smith said, and "while reoffending amongst Maori reflect a range of factors, the most important if these is the prevalence of gang membership among Maori".

Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox blamed “institutional racism”.

Hobson’s Pledge says that strategies used by Corrections to reduce re-offending should be carried out in the best interests of the individual. That is because a continued focus on ethnicity has so far failed to achieve positive outcomes.